happy birthday, Ji!
It is tribute to how far model L-48491 has come from his first coded thought that he looks down at the blank, unmoving face of the head of the government and has two simultaneous realisations, both vivid: one is that he has seen real death with his own eyes but had assumed that it would only happen to the people who matter to him in absentia; that Father Nolan's death was simply words on a page and an absence; he never saw a body, and he wonders now if the body looked like -- this.
The other is that there has never been such a stark reminder that they are still breakable, fallible pieces of technology.
After a moment, the concepts merge, and he thinks: death is just a human being breaking down.
The key is still around Oliver's neck, the delicate chain spilled partially out across the wood, and Oliver's shirt is rumpled with futile, hasty effort but still covers his shoulder: carelessness, then, rather than assassination. Nacio puts one hand on Oliver's cool back and tugs his shirt down with the other, then removes the chain. He is very careful not to let the man's head fall back down to the desk with any sort of violence. He also tries not to look at his face for very long.
As soon as the key has made three clockwise turns Oliver's head jerks upward with a sound like a gasp -- Nacio pulls his hand away -- and his face clicks silently from that disturbing neutrality into the expression of annoyance that he must have been wearing just before the wind-down wiped his .app, and then clicks again into amused embarrassment as it catches up with his current situation. The effect is akin to flicking through the pages of a book.
"Nacio," he says, and lifts the heel of his hand to his temple. "Right. Fierce."
"You should set an alarm."
"Let's not -- mention this to the others."
Nacio says, "All right, Oliver."
"What's the time?"
Nacio doesn't move his eyes. "A quarter past two," he says instantly.
Oliver drops his hand again; the motion sends half a pile of papers drifting off the desk and onto the floor. "Must've forgotten this morning -- yesterday morning. I thought I was getting tired, can you believe it?"
Nacio remembers the moment of discovery; the exquisite dichotomy of man and machine. "I thought you were dead," he offers, carefully. "For a second."
Oliver stands up, a grin creasing his lips. "Y'know there's a whole line of models that yawn at set intervals when they're winding down? Nice conceit."
Nacio sighs. "Fix your shirt, Oliver."
"And spoil the fun for anyone who might happen to walk in? This revolution has been sadly lacking in debauchery." But his fingers pinch the key's grip for a moment and then he draws it out by the chain, instead, and slips it over his own neck as though wholly engrossed in the perfection of his own action: an intensity usually missing from everything of Oliver's except his speeches. Nacio is not sure what to say; if the slowness is an artefact of the wind-down, or a form of imprinting due to proximity -- Oliver Wolf's tendency, coded or deliberate, to play to his audience -- or something more personal.
"Quit yer staring, Nacio -- I know I'm attractive, but it ain't gentlemanly." Dieter's tube drawl, which Oliver still ransacks for diphthongs whenever he thinks they will be of use. He grins again, leaning closer, and the joke is bright in his face.
Nacio smiles and pulls Oliver's shirt straight by the collar, buttons it, then touches him gently on the shoulder. "Come on," he says. "Nahia has made tea."